My Blake
| My Blake |
My Blake
Part 1: In Russia
Part 2: In England
I grew up in a country where English literature was considered exemplary, and it was faithfully translated into my native language by many generations of eminent translators. British or American classics were almost as popular as Russian, but of course William Shakespeare always stood in the first place and eclipsed all other authors of the world. Therefore, it is not surprising that in my early youth, when I began to write music and was looking for texts for my vocal compositions, I initially turned to setting Shakespeare’s sonnets widely known in Russian translations, by Samuil Marshak. I had only started studying English then.
One day in 1967, when by chance in a bookshop, I bought a Soviet book with an English title: In the Realm of Beauty, a collection of English-language poetry printed in English, I was struck by William Blake’s short quatrain:
To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand And Eternity in an hour.
It impressed me with its depth, universality, an incredible flight of the imagination, while at the same time, an amazing simplicity. I immediately felt that I had found the main thing I was looking for in art, poetry, music and in life itself. After translating it into Russian I began to translate everything from that book—there were the works of Shakespeare, Byron, Shelley, Coleridge, Keats, Burns, Edgar Allan Poe, and many other great poets, but Blake drew me in more than anybody else. Then I could not have foreseen how much this hobby would affect my music and life, causing to eventually even emigrate to the country of English bards. Later my wife Elena Firsova, also a composer, set to her music, my first translation for Chorus and Orchestra in Augury, Op. 38, 1988, one of her the most monumental works, commissioned and performed at the London festival Proms . I also set to music for soprano and five instruments the same text but in the original English version in my Three Blake Songs for voice and ensemble of 2 clarinets, viola, cello and double bass, Op. 61, No. 3, 1992 . To make it possible to perform this not only in English but also in Russian, I placed my Russian translation below the English text in the score:
1. To see a World… Op. 61, No. 3, 1992: the beginning.
However the list of my works setting Blake to music begins with another piece called The Crystal Cabinet for violin and piano (or celesta), Op. 27g, 1979 . I was enchanted by Blake’s poem of the same title from the Pickering Manuscript that begins with:
The Maiden caught me in the Wild Where I was dancing merrily She put me into her Cabinet And Lockd me up with a golden Key…
The poem tells the story of a miraculous meeting of a young man with a translucent threefold maiden “each in the other closed” with her threefold smile and threefold kiss. These gave me a simple but rather unusual structural idea to compose piece where every bar of the accompaniment contains four different triads made of all different notes but together they embrace a complete chromatic scale. The series of these triads form multiple and always different combinations, and on top of this harmony the melodious line of the violin appears, which is built of the notes suggested by the triads of the accompaniment:
2. The Crystal Cabinet, Op. 27 g, 1979: the beginning.
In December of 1979 one of the most pivotal of my compositions was completed: it was The Seasons for voice, flute, viola and harp, Op. 28, the setting of four Blake verses from his earliest collection, Poetic Sketches: To Spring, To Summer, To Autumn and To Winter. The cycle of them begins:
O thou, with dewy locks, who lookest down Thro’' the clear windows of the morning; turn Thine angel eyes upon our western isle, Which in full choir hails thy approach, O Spring!
It was difficult to believe that these beautiful and powerful poems were written by a boy of 14. The four seasons were treated by young Blake as a complete cycle of a human life from birth to death. It was a real pleasure to set to music such wonderful poetry. This was my first serious musical appeal to Blake, which later grew into a kind of “conversion to Blake’s faith.” I’ve found that the soprano voice, together with such an exquisite instrumental combination is indeed capable of communicating some powerful drama. I extracted the pitch music material from different segments of the natural overtone scale, guided by the intuitive idea of the emotional colour of certain musical intervals that could be capable of transmitting the images of the different seasons of the year. So the intervallic material of a young ecstatic Spring was the cohesion of two minor thirds through a major second, in semitones: +3−2+3, where plus means ascending interval and minus means a descending one; a more calm and balanced Summer was identified with two major thirds connected by a minor third: +4−3+4; sad and burdened with fruits Autumn was expressed by conjugation of two minor seconds through a perfect fifth: +1+7−1; and a cold gloomy Winter was depicted with the “deadest” of intervals: the tritone linked to another tritone by means of a minor second: +6+1+6.
3. The Seasons, Op. 28 No. 1. To Spring, 1979: the beginning.
This work was the most successful of my compositions of those years. After the Moscow premiere on 10th of March of 1980 performed by soprano Lydia Davydova and the ensemble under the baton of Sergei Skripka, it was repeated there in 1982 with Nikolai Korndorf as a conductor, then at the Berlin festival in 1986 with soprano Janis Harper and the Ensemble Modern conducted by Péter Eötvös , and later in England and the USA. The score and set of parts were printed by an American publisher G. Schirmer .
In May of 1980 I decided to write a symphony in four movements for a large orchestra based on my song cycle The Seasons to recreate this music by only symphonic means, without singing—like the way in which a painter turns his black and white sketch into a colourful canvas. I was also encouraged by the example of Gustav Mahler with regard to the symphonies, many of which were written on the basis of his vocal cycles. My First Symphony “The Seasons” for large symphony orchestra, Op. 30, was completed in September, 1980 and dedicated to Memory of William Blake.
The premiere took place on 8th of October, 1981 in Riga. Vasily Sinaisky conducted the symphony with great inspiration and the Latvian State Orchestra played it excellently. After that, quite a few more performances followed: in Moscow , Gorky (now Nizhny Novgorod), Dzerzhinsk, Tanglewood (USA, Massachusetts), Daegu (South Korea), London (UK), The Hague (NL), and twice in Columbus (USA, Ohio). I have attended most of these events which was great fun. The score was printed by the Sovetsky Kompozitor Publishers, Moscow, 1988 and now is represented by Boosey and Hawkes, London.
4. The Seasons, G. Schirmer, New York, 1991: cover of the score.
5. First Symphony “The Seasons”, Sovetsky Kompozitor, Moscow, 1988: cover of the score.
In January of 1981 I wrote the song cycle called Fearful Symmetry, Six Poems by William Blake for voice and organ, Op. 32, that include To Apollo—an excerpt from An Imitation of Spenser and To Muses (both are from Poetical Sketches), Morning and Day (from Rossetti Manuscript), The Sick Rose and The Tyger (from Songs of Experience). It was premiered five years later on the 10th of March, 1986, in Moscow by Lydia Davydova, soprano, and Ekaterina Prochakova, organist. Much later I created a version for voice and piano: Op. 32a, 2003/2010 . The music of To Muses became also the basis of my Ballade, Op. 35, 1982 for alto saxophone and piano . The music of The Tyger I rearranged a few times for a different cast of performers (see Opp. 41, 61, 61a and 132). All the texture of my The Tyger is based on the idea of “fearful symmetry” and everything that appears in the lower register of the accompaniment is mirrored later in the upper one and vice versa:
6. The Tyger, Op. 35 No. 6: bars 9-17. In addition to composing music I used my spare time to translate English poetry into Russian, and when I finished working on early Blake, I approached his first so called “prophetic poems”. On 18th February of 1983 I finished a translation of Tiriel, which I worked on with great enthusiasm, because I felt that this is the thing that I had been searching for so long—an excellent operatic plot with quite an actual subject: a former tyrant, removed from power and filled with the thirst for revenge, sends devastating, malicious curses to all destined to cross his path: to his sons, daughters, brothers, dear old parents, and, finally, to himself, and by this he brings death to all humanity. I read the translation to my wife Elena and she approved my idea for the opera. For a few days I worked on a libretto, and then on the 24th of February began to compose the music .
I began the Symphonic Prologue to the opera Tiriel after inventing of a specific system of repetitions of the sounds of a 12-tone series that is reminiscent of a rope twined with two identical strings. An eminent Russian musicologist Yuri Kholopov commented on this technique as follows: “The composer began his composition with a Prologue (a kind of overture), based on a series that is symmetrical in its structure... The individual mode comes from the principle of imitative interpolation of a pair of identical series leading to a regular repetition of the sound pitches ... and even to the obvious tonal colouring (quasi g-moll)”
7. Tiriel, the Symphonic Prologue to the opera, Op. 41a: the beginning.
The opera Tiriel, op. 41, for soloists, chorus, dancers and full symphony orchestra was completed in January 1985 . To the text of the libretto I added also five more Blake poems: Introduction from Songs of Innocence, The Tyger from Songs of Experience, The Divine Image from Songs of Innocence, A Divine Image from Songs of Experience and A Cradle Song from Rossetti Manuscript. The latter became an epilogue of the opera: sang by the goddess Mnetha, it represents a sort of the lullaby to mankind, which had already passed away. The opera ends with the following words:
O, the cunning wiles that creep In thy little heart asleep. When thy little heart doth wake, Then the dreadful lightnings break.
From thy cheek & from thy eye O’er the youthful harvests nigh Infant wiles & infant smiles Heaven & Earth of peace beguiles.
I reused then the music of this lullaby in the second movement of my Second String Quartet, Op. 42, 1985 that I dedicated to my son Philip who was just born on 8th of April .
After this I began writing my second opera The Lamentations of Thel, or just Thel, Op. 45 , after another Blake’s “prophetic poem” called The Book of Thel. I liked that intimate and lyrical parable about a girl, Thel, who complains of her future death and searches for the meaning of life. When I read to Elena, my just completed translation of the poem, she said: “This is about me.” I explained that was why I decided to write an opera setting this story. I was working on this chamber opera between 1985 and 1986. This became a sort of a sequel to Tiriel, but much shorter with a smaller cast of performers and orchestra: for this it required only four singers, small chorus and ensemble of sixteen players . From the very beginning of the Prologue the music is full of the intonations of uncertainty, tormenting questions and sorrowful lamentations:
7. Thel, the Prologue to the opera, Op. 45a: the beginning.
In Moscow we didn’t live in complete isolation from the world. Foreign guests: composers, musicians, publishers who increasingly visited us, were interested in our new scores, which they took with them to their homes. So, Jurgen Köchel from Hans Sikorski Publishers took the score of Tiriel to Hamburg, and David Drew from Boosey & Hawkes took the Thel to London, assuring me that it was for them. Soon I received a telegram from Köchel reporting the place and date of the future premiere of Tiriel: in Freiburg, Germany, on 28th of January 1989. It was going to be staged in the German translation by Paul Esterházy, directed by Siegfried Schoenbohm and conducted by Gerchard Markson. Eight performances of the opera were announced. This was followed by a phone call from Gerard McBurney from London, who delighted me with the news that Thel will be staged by the company Théâtre de Complicite at the Almeida theater, London, on 9, 10 and 11 June 1989, under the baton of the young and enthusiastic conductor Jeremy Arden. Soon we learned more news: in August 1989, Elena and I were invited to Tanglewood, where Oliver Knussen will conduct my First Symphony “The Seasons”. All this turned out to be an amazing gift to my 40th birthday.
9. Tiriel, Freiburg, Germany, 1989: poster. 10. Thel, London, UK, 1989: poster.
In 1987-1988 at the request of Liza Wilson, cellist and director of Chameleon Ensemble, I wrote a chamber cantata called Songs of Love and Madness, Op. 49, for voice, clarinet, celesta, harp and string trio. For the text I chose four early Blake’s “Songs”: 1. How sweet I roamed… 2. My silks and fine array… 3. Love and harmony combine…, and 4. Mad Song (“The wild winds weep…). It was premiered in November, 1990 at The Huddersfield Festival by Margaret Field, soprano, Chameleon Ensemble and Andrew Ball who conducted and played celesta at the same time.
The next work written in April-June of 1988 was a piano cycle The Seven Angels of William Blake, op. 50 . There are eight movements in the cycle: 1. Prelude (Angel), 2. Lucifer, the Morning Star, 3. Molech, the executioner, 4. Elochim creating Adam, Adam creating Elochim, 5. Shaddai's Anger, 6. Pachad's Fear, 7. Jehovah appealing to Eternity, 8. Jesus the Lamb. The list of these gods and demons was taken from Blake’s epic poems Four Zoas, Milton, and Jerusalem. I wanted to provide every of these characters with musicals portraits. Also in the work I realised my idea of the extraction of musical material from English language itself by establishing a relationship between words and melodic intervals:
11. Musical Alphabet: letter=interval, invented by © Dmitri N. Smirnov, Moscow, 1988.
For example, the name Lucifer in this system will be turned into the following pattern, the chain of musical intervals:
12. The thematic pattern for “Lucifer”.
The work was premiered on 23th of November, 1989, in Glasgow by its dedicatee a pianist Susan Bradshaw.
In 1988 I received a commission from the The Nash Ensemble for a new chamber work and I immediately thought about an astonishing watercolour Blake’s picture called Malevolence. I wanted to reflect its striking images in music. Blake himself explained the subject as “a father, taking leave of his wife and child, is watched by two fiends incarnate, with the intention that when his back is turned they will murder the mother and her infant”. I chose the combination of instruments that corresponds to the characters of the picture: the viola, flute piccolo and violin represent the “positive” characters of father, child and mother, whereas the bass clarinet and double bass represent the two “villains” of the piece; lastly, the full moon at the center of Blake’s composition that shines out “good and evil” in equal measure and is represented by the cello. I thought about the piece as some kind of a “visionary ballet” and included in it a theatrical effect: the viola player that supposes to be “a father” is leaving the stage in the middle of the performance and then is playing from the balcony. I called the piece The Moonlight Story, Op. 51 . The score was finished 14th of August 1988 in Moscow and premiered on 8th June 1989 at the Almeida Theatre, London, by The Nash Ensemble and Lionel Friend, conductor. The piece became the first part of my visionary ballet Blake Pictures. Later I travelled to Philadelphia, USA, specially to see this picture in the Museum of Art. It was hidden in a special storage, but I was allowed to see and keep the picture in my hands for one hour. It was a very exceptional experience, and to my surprise a I discovered that the colours of the picture radiate light.
When I worked on my First Violin Concerto Op. 54, 1990 for violin and string orchestra, I thought about images of beautiful Blake’s picture Jacob’s Dream, trying to reflect its ascending and descending images. Soon after completing of a short diptych for chorus a capella From Evening to Morning, Op. 55, 1990 a set of two Blake’s poems: To the Evening Star and To Morning from the Poetical Sketches, I’ve received a commission from Michael Viner Trust to compose a new piece for a large instrumental ensemble. This gave me an opportunity to continue my visionary ballet Blake’s Picture.
13. The Seven Angels of William Blake, Kompozitor, Moscow, 1996: cover of the score.
14. Jacob’s Ladder, Boosey & Hawkes, London, 1993: cover of the score.
This was Jacob’s Ladder, for 16 players, Op. 58, 1990 or Blake's Picture II – the second part of an imaginary ballet. The piece is dedicated to the memory of Michael Vyner. Here I returned back to Blake’s watercolour Jacob’s Dream, c. 1805 that depicts a giant spiral staircase descending from a shiny sun to Jacob, stretched out asleep on a rock, with winged creatures gliding up and down the ladder. I represented the ladder in this music using different scales including the overtone series and their mirror forms. The figure of Jacob is represented by a solo bassoon; the stars on the blue sky with bell-like metal percussions, harp and celesta; the angels by string and wind instruments and the words spoken by God by the bass drum. The work was premiered on 17th of April, 1991 at Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, by The London Sinfonietta, conducted by Gennady Rozhdestvensky. The score was printed by Boosey & Hawkes Publishers.
My last work written on Russian-Soviet land was A Song of Liberty Op. 59, 1991 an oratorio set a complete epilogue of the same title from Blake’s prophetical phantasmagoria The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. The oratorio was commissioned by the Leeds Festival Chorus for their 135th Anniversary to be performed together with C minor Mass by Mozart on 30th January, 1993 at the Leeds Town Hall, with The Leeds Festival Chorus, The BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Jerzy Maksymiuk. I used the same cast as in Mozart’s Mass: four singers, mixed chorus and orchestra, adding to it only some percussion instruments and harp. This work comprises nine movements:
I. The Eternal Female groans… Introduction II. Albion’s coast, the American meadows… Passacaglia III. Shadows of Prophecy… Soprano Aria IV. France, Spain, Rome… Canon V. The new born terror… Fantasia I VI. The fire… Chorale VII. Londoner, Jew, African… Quartet VIII. The fiery limbs… The Battle of Liberty, Fantasia II IX. Priests of the Raven… Final Chorus.
15. A Song of Liberty, Op. 59, No. 7, 1991: the beginning.
The oratorio is concluded with the words: “For everything that lives is holy!”
Step by step times were changing. In the so called Perestroika period, my wife and I were able to go abroad more and more often, to attend the performances of our music. I had visited a few European countries, Poland, the United States and even South Korea. I had been to England already three times, attending the performances of The Seasons, in 1988, of The Lamentations of Thel and The Moonlight Story, in 1989, and of Songs of Love and Madness, in 1990. I attended the remarkable exhibition of Blake’s paintings and drawings, and in the British Library I was given opportunity of seeing a selection of his manuscripts and to read from the original copies of books printed and coloured by his own hand. It made me think of this country as the place I especially would like to live. At the same time the political situation in Russia began uncertain: Mikhail Gorbachov was definitely losing his power, and our colleagues and friends, composers and musicians were looking for any possibilities to abandon the “sinking ship”.
In January, 1991 in Moscow I suddenly received a postcard from Kathleen Raine, whom I had never met before, but whose wonderful books about Blake I loved very much. She wrote to me that she had been very surprised to learn from some of her friends that in Russia there is a composer who is crazy about Blake, as she is. And she asked me when I was next in London to come to her place at 47 Paulton Square for a cup of tea. I answered that I was happy to accept her invitation and invited her to come to the performance of my Jacob’s Ladder in April at the South Bank Festival. Very soon I received her letter where she wrote: “It was with great surprise and pleasure that I received your letter about Blake and your love for him and your music based on his great inner worlds. I will make every effort to come to the performance of ‘Jacob’s Ladder’ on April 17th. Of all Blake’s paintings it is probably the one I love best... It is wonderful to think that you have made Blake renowned in Russia at this time”.
The Southbank Festival sent the invitation to us in September, 1990 long time in advance and we began to prepare documents for obtaining the visas. To our great surprise we received also something that we never received before: the permission to take our small children together with us: Philip was 6 and Alissa only 4 then. This suddenly opened an incredible opportunity for us to try to begin a new life in a completely different part of the world, and 13th of April, 1991 we arrived to Great Britain, where we have lived ever since.
16. The letter from Kathleen Raine, 8th February 1991.
Dmitri Nikolaevich Smirnov
My Blake
Part II. In England
England welcomed us cordially. Our concert was a success. The magnificent Jacob’s Dream depicted by the genius of William Blake almost two hundred years ago and now turned into music, returned from Moscow back to London to be played by the London Sinfonietta under the baton of Russian conductor. It seemed to me that Londoners appreciated this. My wife Elena’s Horn Concerto was equally well received. After the concert we were invited to the Garrick Club, and together with our small children had a joyful dinner there until late at night. The next morning we moved from Kensington’s luxury “Tara” Hotel to the homes of our friends, who showed great care about us and took turns in kindly offering us temporary shelter. The newspapers’ reviews were rather positive: “...its spiralling motifs and sun-lit instrumental colours making a dreamlike counterpart to the visionary William Blake picture which inspired it” (Daily Telegraph) . “Inspired by William Blake’s drawing of the Biblical story, this beautifully crafted piece is sectional, with contrasted instrumental groupings marking the boundaries. It is also refined, revealing sensitivity for instrumental characteristics and a predilection for lyrical phrases. The ending, when the first violin emerges from a lovely texture of celesta, vibraphone, bells and the higher stringed instruments is a moment of transcendent magic. It also exemplifies the economy of Smirnov’s writing: not a note was inessential” (The Times) . Our publishers were pleased and decided to print out the both our scores.
Soon Kathleen Raine invited all of us for a cup of tea. The tea party lasted more than three hours and we had a long and wonderful talk about our favourite William Blake. I told her about my two operas written to the texts of Blake’s early prophetic poems and asked for her advice about what to choose for my next Blake project. With no hesitation, she showed me the original copies of Blake’s illustrations for The Book of Job that decorated the walls above her staircase and said that it could be a wonderful subject for a dramatic musical work. As a present she gave me a few of her books about Blake, as well as her own Selected Poems and Autobiographies. She also gave us an excellent reference to her friend John Lane, an artist and head of Dartington Hall Trust. She added: “He is crazy about William Blake exactly like we are, and he will definitely help you”.
My first composition written in England was a song-cycle: Short Poems, op. 60, setting five lyrical miniatures by Kathleen Raine, in every line of which I have found echoes of William Blake: This little house No smaller than the world Nor I lonely Dwelling in all that is
I completed the work on the 10th of May and presented a copy of my manuscript to the poet during our next meeting in her little house in Chelsea. She was delighted and asked me to send her a recording when this was to be performed.
17. Kathleen Raine and I in November 1991.
At the beginning of June I received a commission from the Composers’ Ensemble to write a piece for soprano and 5 instruments (2 clarinets, viola, cello and double bass). I decided that it was a good opportunity set to music the Blake’s Silent, silent night, which was described by Thomas Mann in his Doctor Faustus when he narrated the story of the fictitious composer Adrian Leverkühn as “a very strange poem by this author he so loved… who had provided these elusively scandalous verses with very simple harmonies, which in comparison to the musical language of the whole seemed more ragged, more eerie and ‘false’ than the most audacious dissonances, in which in fact allowed the triad to come to monstrous fruition”. When I finished this work and reread the episode above I felt as if Thomas Mann had been writing this about me and my new composition.
18. Silent, Silent Night, Op. 61, No. 1: the beginning.
After the beautiful performance of this song by the soprano Mary Wiegold and the ensemble conducted by John Woolrich on the 20th July of 1991, at the Cheltenham Festival, I added to it two more songs: The Tyger (Songs of Experience) and To See a World in a Grain of Sand (Auguries of Innocence, Pickering Manuscript), entitling the work Three Blake’s Songs, for voice and chamber ensemble, Op. 61. Nine years later I created a new version of the cycle: Four Blake’s Songs, for soprano and string quartet, Op. 61a , adding one more song, A Divine Image (Songs of Experience), borrowing it from my opera Tiriel.
Almost every week my family and I moved from one friends’ house to another and had already changed ten different places in London until Barry Gavin, a TV film director, suggested we stay at his cottage in a village called Cwm in Shropshire, where we happily spent the whole July. I thought about Kathleen Raine’s suggestion to follow Blake’s illustrations for The Book of Job, to create some dramatic musical work. Looking at Blake’s etchings I had chosen four of them, using the caption written above or below each of Blake's pictures as the texts for narration: 1. There was a Man in the Land of Uz (Ch.1:1-2), 2. The fire is fallen from Heaven (Ch.1:16), 3. Let the day perish wherein I was born (Ch. 3:3), 4. Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind (Ch. 38:1-2). I decided to limit myself with a solo instrument, the clarinet, using the player as also verbal narrator, who reads the text and then plays the melodic phrases representing the same words, translated into notes by musical means, based on the specific coding system where each letter corresponds to a certain note:
19. Four Studies after The Book of Job (Job’s Studies), Op. 62, No. 1, Code: letter=note.
When turned in music it looks like this:
20. Four Studies after The Book of Job (Job’s Studies), Op. 62, No. 1: the beginning.
This quite unusual and experimental opus entitled Job’s Studies (or Four Studies after The Book of Job), Op. 62, was premiered on the 25th of October, 1991 at the Ohio State University. It was magnificently delivered by a clarinettist Bruce Curlette and sounded akin to a strange mysterious ritual, a sort of a sermon in music .
Meanwhile I received a message from Devon: John Lane invited us to come to Dartington Hall on the 8th of August, 1991 to discuss the details how he could help us. This coincided with the second performance of my Silent, Silent Night that took place at the Dartington Summer Music Festival. Before our meeting we walked around the most beautiful garden and suddenly found a big stone tablet with the carved gold-plated inscription:
To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand And Eternity in an hour
It made me feel that this place will be hospitable to us.
21. I in the Dartington Garden.
I told John Lane about our discovery, and he answered that this tablet and the inscription was his responsibility. John Lane asked his secretary to take our children for a long walk, and then after a two hours of exciting conversation, mainly focused on our mutual interest in William Blake, he declared that he had decided to provide us with a spacious six room house for one year, beginning from the next april, for free – we only had to cover our gas and electricity bills ourselves. Then he drove us to our future house and around all the attractions of the neighbourhood. All this seemed miraculous and we felt on top of the world. Later when we told our friends about this, they exclaimed: “This is Blake smiling on you”.
This was followed by other news: On the 19th of August in Moscow there was a coup d'état, which made our return there precarious. However our British visas were already drawing to a close and something had to be done. Our new friend Chris Tew wrote about us to Parliament, to the Chief Secretary to the Treasury David Mellor, a request to extend our British visas, and in early September there came an answer: we were allowed to stay here indefinitely. At the same time, we received visas for the trip to music festivals in the USA and Germany, where our works was to be performed. We rented a house at 4 Geraldine Road, Chiswick, and there our children first went to school. I received a new commission from the London Sinfonietta and also from the Chameleon Ensemble – both of which were directly related to Blake. One day in October we had a visitor, a newspaper correspondent who asked us a few questions. In a couple of days on the front page of The Independent a large picture of all our family with an article by Norman Lebrecht was printed: Russia’s top two composers flee to UK. The Smirnovs: economic migrants – or a brilliant musical catch? Lebrecht didn’t write exclusively about us but about all our colleagues who had fled Russia, an exodus that he described as “the most devastating musical migration since Hitler purged German culture in the 1930s.”
On the 12th of October, together with our children, we flew to America. We spent a week in Indianapolis, Indiana, and then moved to Columbus, Ohio, where the four works from my Blake-list were being performed: Job’s Studies, The Moonlight Story, The Seasons for soprano and ensemble, and the First Symphony, which was played by Columbus Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Gunther Schuller. At the same time the Symphony was also performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Oliver Knussen at the Royal Festival Hall in London, and it was a pity that I was unable to be in two places at once to attend both the Ohio State and British premieres. From the USA we flew to the festival in Heidelberg, Germany and on the 4th of November we returned to London.
Deciding to continue my “visionary ballet” Blake Pictures, I focused now on Blake’s ink and tempera painting called The Body of Abel Found by Adam and Eve, which made a great impression on me when I saw it at the Tate Gallery. On the 4th of December I completed my new score: Abel for clarinet, violin, cello and piano, Op. 65. In this work the four figures in the picture correspond to the four instruments: Abel—clarinet, Eve—violin, Adam—cello, and Cain—piano. In the work, I also used the “Musical Alphabet” (See Ex. 11 in the First part of the article) invented by me in 1988. Each of the characters was given a unique motif enabling me to attempt to grasp the spirit of the picture in musical sounds and shapes:
22. Abel, Op. 65. Four main motives: Abel, Cain, Adam and Eve.
The 1st performance of this work took place on the 24th of June, 1992 at St Magnus Cathedral in Kirkwall, Orkney, played by the Chameleon ensemble .
The next work was completed on the 2nd of February, 1992 in Cambridge, where we received a fellowship and three months living allowance at St John’s College. This was The River of Life, for a chamber ensemble of 16 players, Op. 66. It was inspired by Blake’s beautiful tinted with watercolour drawing of the same title that I had enjoyed viewing at the Tate Gallery. Blake illustrated the opening passage of Chapter 22 of Revelations, enriching it with some additional details. Once he is known to have said: “The last Judgment is one of the most stupendous visions. I have represented it as I saw it”. Now I could say similarly that I have represented it as I heard it. It was first performed on the 8th of November, 1992, at the Queen Elisabeth Hall, London by the London Sinfonietta, conducted by Oliver Knussen.
So, this became the fourth and the last part of my imaginary ballet Blake Pictures. I name this an “imaginary” because the ballet exists only in my own imagination. Despite each of its four parts was performed as a chamber ensemble work on numerous occasions they have never been played together or staged as a ballet that I would dream about.
23. The River of Life, Op. 66: the beginning.
After three wonderful months in Cambridge and a short visit of Moscow, on the 14th of April 1992 we moved into our new house in Dartington Hall Estate. We spent the happiest nine months in that beautiful place looked like a Paradise Garden. Among six compositions, which I wrote for that period, the two had Blake connection. I was reading a poem Vala or Four Zoa, when German organ player Friedemann Herz asked me to compose a short piece for solo organ. I immediately thought about Los and Enitharmon, two key characters of the immense cosmos of Blake’s mythology: Los, the Prophet of Eternity, symbol of poetry and creative imagination, and Enitharmon, the spiritual beauty, his consort and inspiration, whom Blake identified with himself and his wife Catherine. In some respect I also began identify them with myself and my wife Elena. So, I composed Diptych, Op. 70, in two movements: 1. Los, 2. Enitharmon, based on the melodic forms extracted from the letters of their names. Friedemann Herz premiered it on the 25th September, 1992, at Riga Dome Cathedral, Latvia.
24. Blake Pictures, a visionary ballet in 4 scenes: flier. 25. Diptych, Los and Enitharmon, Meladina Press, St. Albans, UK.
Another work written in Dartington was a Piano Quintet for piano, violin, viola, cello and double bass, Op. 72, dedicated to memory of my teacher a composer Nikolai Sidelnikov. A special principle of pitch organisation that I found for the second movement, which had been influenced by Blake’s poem The Crystal Cabinet (see also Op.27g), became the main basis for the whole cycle unifying all three movements together. The first performance of it took place on the 23rd January, 1993 at the Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester, played by the Music Group of Manchester. The quintet was also recorded on CD, the Meridian label CDE84586 by Primrose Piano Quartet and Leon Bosch, double bass.
Very soon, rather unexpectedly, Elena and I had received a five-year contract as visiting professors of composition at the University of Keele in Staffordshire. In January 1993 we moved to the campus, where we had a free house and a spacious room in the university building, where I taught and compose music anytime I wanted. In the first year, the members of staff and the students of the Music Department presented me with a magnificent gift: secretly from me they were preparing for the production of my chamber opera The Lamentations of Thel and told me about this when everything was already ready. The performance in costumes and even with decorations took place on the 29th May, 1993. It was conducted by Rahmil Fishman, and the role of Thel was sung by Jane W. Davidson, the same singer who participated in the premiere of the opera in 1989. This time she had been also a stage director of the show.
These five years were an incredibly productive period during which I wrote more than 40 compositions. The most ambitious of them was The Guardians of Space, almost half-hour long orchestral suite in eight movements, Op. 79, 1994. It was an expanded orchestral version of my piano cycle The Seven Angels of William Blake, Op. 50. Another piece was The Lamb, for counter-tenor and six viols, Op. 83, a setting of Blake’s The Lamb from Songs of Innocence, was first performed on the 2nd of May, 1995 at the Purcell Room in London, by Michael Chance, counter tenor and Fretwork ensemble.
26. The Lamb, Op. 83: the beginning.
One more piece, Miss Gittipin’s Talk, for soprano solo, Op. 98, was the setting of a short prose fragment from An Island on the Moon. It had been performed only once by a wonderful singer Jane Manning in a workshop in front of the students of the Music Department. I was very much attracted with that Blake’s witty satiric burlesque and even thought to write a comic opera on its subject, but because he author left it unfinished, I couldn’t manage to produce a good libretto with a convincing conclusion.
27. Miss Gittipin’s Talk, Op. 98: the beginning.
In Autumn of 1998 our university contract has come to an end and we moved in St Albans, nearer to London, where we live now. Here I wrote already more than eighty compositions, and more than ten of them are associated with Blake. The first one was A Cradle Song, for soprano and piano, Op. 126, 2001, for which I had chosen the text from Songs of Innocence. It followed with the electro-acoustic work: Innocence of Experience, for tape, Op. 132, 2001, quite a long cycle that lasts 27 minutes. It includes six Innocence songs: 1. Introduction, 2. The Lamb, 3. Laughing Song, 4. Infant Joy, 5. A Dream, 6. The Divine Image, and four songs of Experience: 7. The Clod & the Pebble, 8. The Sick Rose, 9. The Fly, 10. The Tyger. Five of these poems I already set into music previously, and now I returned to the musical material of those settings, but presented it here in a quite different manner. At first I asked my daughter to read the poems and then worked on the recording of her voice in my home studio editing it and adding to it some sounds of nature, musical instruments and so on . For “The Sick Rose” (No. 8), for example, I found a completely new musical idea, representing the Rose with a three-part contrapuntal chorus played by the electronic synthesizer that imitated string instruments, and for the Worm with a single snake-like voice using the same notes but dispersed by wide intervals between them in the very low register :
28. The Sick Rose, from Innocence of Experience, for tape, Op. 132: the beginning.
The next work on Blakean subject was the Inferno (String Quartet No. 8), in 17 episodes, for two violins, viola and cello, Op. 152, 2008: the first part of our family project, the cycle of three String Quartets after Dante’s Divine Comedy. It was commissioned by Rodewald Concert Society, in partnership with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic. The second part, Purgatorio, was written by my wife Elena Firsova, and the third, Paradiso, by our daughter Alissa Firsova, and our son Philip Firsov created three large ink drawings, and later three engravings on the same subject, which accompanied many performances of our quartets. Composing the Inferno, I looked through the set of Blake’s Dante illustrations, and my music was greatly inspired by them, so I added the subtitle to the score: “After Blake’s illustrations of Dante’s Divine Comedy”. Philip was also well familiar with these illustrations and in his work deliberately echoed some Blake’s images that could be clearly seen, for example, on the following detail of his drawing:
29. Philip Firsov: Inferno, drawing, detail, 2015.
I can explain how the text of Dante’s poem and Blake’s images were reflected in my music. In Inferno, Canto 13, there is an impressive episode, when the travelers crossing Phlegethon river, enter the Wood of the Suicides (in the Seventh Circle, the Second Ring). There was a loud groan from everywhere, as if whole crowds surround them, but no one was visible, and when Dante, at the instigation of Virgil, broke a branch, the tree cried: “Perche mi scerpi?” (Why do you scratch me?) . And it’s became clear: the suicides were turned into trees. Blake remarkably reflected this in his 25th illustration, where in the trunks you can see the features of human bodies:
30. William Blake: The Wood of the Self-Violators, Dante illustration No. 25.
In a certain sense, this idea is reflected in the very structure of the music: the listener hears individual sounds, melodic phrases or chords, but in them are hidden some real people, or rather their names because they are encrypted in every musical fragment. For this I used a simple musical alphabet, invented by me in 1997:
31. Musical Alphabet: letter=note, invented by © Dmitri N. Smirnov, Keele, UK, 1997.
Such a technique is now commonly called "music cryptography" (or "cryptophony"). I will give an example: in the 5th episode of the first part of my Inferno quartet, that correspond to Canto IV, Limbo, where Dante speaks about those who lived before the Christian era, in eight chords in the bars 68-70. If to look closely, it is possible to see: each of these chords is made up of the letters of the name of one of the characters mentioned here: 1. Homer, 2. Horace, 3. Ovid, 4. Lucan, 5. Elektra, 6. Hector, 7. Aeneas and 8. Caesar (read vertically). For such a musical "encoding" I chose Italian spellings of the names that Dante used:
32. Inferno (String Quartet No. 8), Op. 152, Episode No. 5, the Pagans.
The first performance of the cycle Divine Comedy took place on the 4th November, 2008 at St George's Concert Hall, Lime Street, Liverpool; the performers were the members of Dante String Quartet .
The similar principle was used in my Blake-Sonata (Piano Sonata No. 6), in two movements, Op. 157, 2008, where I wanted to create a spiritual portrait of Blake by musical means. The first slow movement is a set of variations on a theme based on the letters of Blake’s name transformed into music. The opening theme is also repeated in the very end of the sonata:
33. Blake-Sonata (Piano Sonata No. 6), Op. 157, the beginning.
The second fast movement has the features of rondo-sonata form, and is a musical depiction of the poem The Tyger: its mirror symmetrical patters suppose to depict the “fearful symmetry” of the monstrous beast, which is “burning bright in the forests of the night” . The sonata is dedicated to my daughter Alissa Firsova, who first performed it on 20th of November 2008 at the Deptford Hall of Goldsmiths College in London. She also recorded it on her début CD: Russian Émigrés, Vivat 109, UK . The score was printed in the Meladina Music Series, Meladina Music, CreateSpace for Amazon, USA .
34. Blake-Sonata (Piano Sonata No. 6), on the Russian Émigrés CD, Vivat 109, UK
35. Blake-Sonata (Piano Sonata No. 6), Meladina Music, CreateSpace for Amazon, USA
My next Blake project was devoted to his so called “Visionary heads”: a series of black chalk and pencil drawings that he produced after 1818 for John Varley, astrologer. I was very much involved to the pre-compositional research, and created also an extensive article on this subject for English and Russian Wikipedia. Then I had chosen five of the drawings and composed a piano cycle titled the Visionary Heads, Op. 172, 2013, where I used the same technique as in two previous works. The cycle consists in five movements: 1. Blake's Instructor, 2. The Man Who Built the Pyramids, 3. Corinna, 4. Cancer Constellation, and 5. Owen Glendower. It was first publically played by my daughter Alissa Firsova on the 29th of March, 2014, at St Saviour’s Church in St Albans .
36. 1. Blake’s Instructor, 2. Piramid’s Builder, 3. Glendower 4. Corinna, 5. Cancer – the series of Blake’s drawings reflected in the piano cycle Visionary Heads, Op. 172
In 2013 I began compose a series of vocal miniatures after the Proverbs of Hell from Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. In December 2017 I have completed 20 of them, which formed all together the four notebooks with solo piano introduction to each of them:
1st Notebook, op151 (2006-07) Introduction 1. A Little Flower (56. To create a little flower is the labour of ages.) 2. The Busy Bee (11. The busy bee has no time for sorrow.) 3. An Eagle (54. When thou seest an Eagle, thou seest a portion of Genius. lift up thy head!) 4. The Clock (12. The hours of folly are measur’d by the clock, but of wisdom: no clock can measure.) 5. Pestilence (5. He who desires but acts not, breeds pestilence.) 6. Black and White (63. The crow wish’d every thing was black, the owl, that every thing was white.) 7. Eternity (10. Eternity is in love with the productions of time.)
2nd Notebook, op185 (2015-16) Introduction 8. Learn, Teach, Enjoy (1. In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy.) 9. The Cart and the Plough (2. Drive your cart and your plow over the bones of the dead.) 10. The Palace of Wisdom (3. The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.) 11. Prudence and Incapacity (4. Prudence is a rich ugly old maid courted by Incapacity.) 12. The Worm and the Plough (6. The cut worm forgives the plow.)
3rd Notebook, op186 (2016) Introduction 13. Dip him... (7. Dip him in the river who loves water.) 14. A fool sees not... (8. A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees.) 15. He whose face... (9. He whose face gives no light, shall never become a star.) 16. No bird soars... (15. No bird soars too high, if he soars with his own wings.)
4th Notebook, op191 (2017) Introduction 17. All Wholsome Food... (13. All wholsom[e] food is caught without a net or a trap.) 18. In a Year of Dearth... (14. Bring out number weight & measure in a year of dearth.) 19. Revenges not Injuries... (16. A dead body revenges not injuries.) 20. The most sublime act... (17. The most sublime act is to set another before you.)
The score is printed in USA and available on Amazon :
37. Proverbs of Hell for voice and piano. Meladina Music, CreateSpace for Amazon, USA
In November 2017 I received quite unusual request from the Ensemble of the Soloists of the Georgian Symphony Orchestra to write a piece that could be played instead of Adagio of J.S. Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No.3. In fact that Adagio consists just of two short chords and only provides a link between two fast movements. I was happy to make possible to connect in one performance two great B’s: Bach and Blake, and composed “Blake Intermezzo” for string septet on the theme that is based on the letters of Blake’s name that I already explored in my “Blake Sonata”. I dedicated the piece to 260th Blake’s anniversary. The premiere took place in Tbilisi a few days later on 28th of November exactly on birthday of William Blake .
Later I made another version of the “Blake Intermezzo”, for double bass and piano, Op. 190a, 2017, on request of Javad Javadzade, a double bass player from the same ensemble .
The scores of the both pieces were published by SMP Press, USA .
So far the list of my Blake set to music contains 44 compositions written for the period of 38 years (between 1979 and 2017). In parallel with this I devote all my spare time to studying Blake and translating of his works into Russian. Publishing my work, I use pen names: Dmitri N. Smirnov for music and D. Smirnov-Sadovsky for literary writings. In 2016 I completed a book called “Blake”, his first full-length Russian biography. The book was published in USA, but in 2017 it was also published in Russia by Magreb.org Publishers.
38. D. Smirnov-Sadovsky: Blake. Biography, 1st ed., CreateSpace for Amazon, USA
39. With two copies of Blake’s biography, 2nd ed. Magreb.org, Moscow, Russia
Also I began a publication of a complete Blake’s works in twelve volumes in a bilingual format with my own Russian translations, and already issued first four volumes:
40. Complete Blake’s Works, vol. 1, Poetical Sketches (bilingual)
41. Complete Blake’s Works, vol. 2, An Island in the Moon and early Prophecies (bilingual)
42. Complete Blake’s Works, vol. 3, Songs of Innocence and of Experience (bilingual)
43. Complete Blake’s Works, vol. 4, Poems and Ballads (bilingual)
I am working now on the fifth volume of Complete Blake’s Works with eight “minor prophecies” that include some Blake’s poems that never been translated into Russian before, such as The [First] Book of Urizen, The Book of Ahania and The Book of Los. My another project, the first Russian translation of a poem “Jerusalem, The Emanation of the Giant Albion” is already completed and is going to be printed soon by Magreb.org Publishers in Moscow.
I have been asked in many occasions: “Why are you fascinated by Blake? Why he is so important for you? What do you like about his work?” I can say that his works and ideas give me a strongest stimulus for composing music. His creative imagination and energy were so great that even now they able to inspire more than the works of any other poet, writer, thinker or artist. Some people say that his works are too simple and even naïve. But if it is so, together with this they contain an incredible power, depth and multitude of meanings. Some others regard his works too puzzling and incomprehensible. However this is what makes them so attractive, forcing us think and submerge into them to realize their deep meaning. He was and remains unique and original in everything he did, and I’m interested equally in his poetry and prose, visual art and philosophy. So, Blake became one of my main spiritual teachers, along with many others such as Dante and Basho, Hölderlin and Coleridge, Pushkin and Mandelstam, Bach and Beethoven, Mahler and Webern, Leonardo and Chagall: all of them seriously influenced my music and even my life, but Blake – more than anybody else.
1st of August 2017, St Albans, England
(Revised on 18th of March 2018)
Blake set to music by Dmitri N. Smirnov
Works written in Russia:
1. The Crystal Cabinet, for violin and piano (or celesta), Op. 27g, 1979/2010, 4 min. Inspired by William Blake’s poem of the same title. 1st performance: 23 May 2014, Council Chamber, Deptford Town Hall, London, Natasha Sachsenmeier, violin & Alissa Firsova, piano. Publ: Meladina Press, St Albans, England. Rec.: youtube.com/watch?v=iCvJHLs1NZY
This music was reused in the following compositions: Hermitage. The Art of the Ancient Rome, – TV score for orchestra, Op.27d, 1979 Piano Quintet, Op. 72 (2nd movement), 1992 The Magic Box, for piano, Op.77 (Nos. 45 and 50), 1993 Well Tempered Piano, Op. 125 (Nos. 7 & 13), 2000
2. The Seasons, for voice, flute, viola and harp, Op.28, 1979, 22 min. Texts: four poems by William Blake from Poetical Sketches. 4 movements: 1. To Spring, 2. To Summer, 3. To Autumn, 4. To Winter. The texts include parallel Russian translations by the composer. 1st performance: 10 March 1980, Union of Composers, Moscow. Lydia Davydova, soprano, Irina Lozben, flute, Mikhail Bezruky, viola, Olga Ortenberg, harp, Sergei Skripka, conductor. Publ: G. Schirmer, New York, 1991. Rec.: youtube.com/watch?v=7AcctgOkIYA&t=498s
3. First Symphony “The Seasons”, in for movements, for full symphony orchestra (without singing), Op. 30, 1980, 26 min. Based on the vocal cycle The Seasons, op. 28. Content: 1. To Spring, 2. To Summer, 3. To Autumn, 4. To Winter. 1st performance: 8 October 1981, Philharmonic Hall, Riga, Latvian State Symphony Orchestra, Vassily Sinaisky, conductor. Publ: Sovetsky Kompozitor, Moscow (score), Boosey & Hawkes, London. Rec.: youtube.com/watch?v=niVW8fPT9Mo&t=632s
4. Fearful Symmetry, Six Poems by William Blake, for voice and organ, Op. 32, 1981/2003, 18 min. 1. To Apollo (an excerpt from Imitation of Spencer), 2. To the Muses (Poetical Sketches), 3. Morning, 4. Day (Notebook), 5. The Sick Rose, 6. The Tyger (Songs of Experience). The texts include parallel Russian translations by the composer. 1st performance: 10 March 1986, Moscow, Union of Composers, Lydia Davydova, soprano, and Ekaterina Prochakova, organ. Publ: Meladina Press.
Here is another version of the same work:
5. Fearful Symmetry, Six Poems by William Blake, for voice and piano, Op. 32a, 1981/2003, 18 min. 1. To Apollo (an excerpt from Imitation of Spencer), 2. To the Muses (Poetical Sketches), 3. Morning, 4. Day (Notebook), 5. The Sick Rose, 6. The Tyger (Songs of Experience). 1st performance (partly): 29 November 2011, December Evening, Moscow, Pushkin Museum, Joan Rogers , soprano, Andrew West, piano. Publ: Meladina Press. Rec.: youtube.com/watch?v=JY63PrEwMgk
6. Ballade, for alto saxophone and piano, Op. 35, 1982, 8 min. Based on the setting of Blake’s poem To the Muses, Op. 32, No. 2. 1st performance: 14 April 1982, Moscow, Union of Composers, Lev Mikhailov, saxophone and Mikhail Muntian, piano. Publ: Sovetsky Kompozitor, Meladina Press. Disc (LP): Melodia C1020849 004, USSR CD: amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01I1UBA86/ref=dm_ws_sp_ps_dp
7. Tiriel: Prologue to the Opera, for full symphony orchestra, Op. 41a, 1983, 11 min. Associated with Blake’s dramatic poem of the same name and A Cradle Song (from a draft Notebook). 1st performance: 30 October 1984, Bolshoi Hall of Moscow Conservatoire, State Symphony Orchestra of Ministry of Culture, Gennadi Rozhdestvenski, conductor. Publ: Meladina Press. Rec.: youtube.com/watch?v=XQZeBA6B8gg&t=12s
This music was rearranged for some different combinations:
8. Tiriel, for baritone saxophone and piano, Op. 41b, 1983, 9 min. 1st performance: 25 April 1984, Union of Composers, Moscow, Margarita Shaposhnikova and Sergey Solodovnik. Publ. Sovetsky Kompozitor (score), Meladina Press. CD: Proyecto MOCKBA, Edita Icaria, ICD128 (Spain) Rec.: youtube.com/watch?v=UcdY-o4afts
8a. Tiriel, for cello and piano, Op. 41c, 1983, 9 min. 1st performance: 5 March 1987, Kishinev, Ivan Monigetti and Yuri Lisitchenko. Publ: Boosey & Hawkes, Meladina Press. Rec.: youtube.com/watch?v=k7-wKWPDAAk&t=38s
8b. Tiriel, for solo piano, Op. 41d, 1983, 9 min. Publ: Meladina Press.
9. Dance of the Nightingale, from opera Tiriel, for solo piccolo flute, Op 43 g, 1984, 2 min. Publ: Meladina Press.
10. “Introduction” to Songs of Innocence (Piping down the valleys wild) from opera Tiriel. Duet for low soprano and baritone with piano, Op. 41i, 1984/2011, 2 min. The text includes parallel Russian translation by the composer. 1st performance: 29 November 2011, Pushkin’s Museum, Moscow; Joan Rogers, soprano, and Roderick Williams, baritone, Andrew West, piano. Publ: Meladina Press.
11. Dance, from opera Tiriel, for cello and piano, Op.41j, 1984/2017, 3 min. 33 sec. Publ: Meladina Press.
12. Tiriel, аn opera in 3 acts (9 scenes) with Prologue, for seven singers, male chorus, dancers, and full symphony orchectra, Op. 41, 1983-5. 110 min. Libretto by Dmitri N. Smirnov after William Blake, in English, or Russian (transl. by D. N. Smirnov), or German (transl. by Paul Estergházy). To the text of Blake’s poem Tiriel were added 5 more of his poems: Introduction (Songs of Innocence), The Tyger (Songs of Experience), The Divine Image (Songs of Innocence), A Divine Image (Songs of Experience), A Cradle Song (Notebook). Premiere (in German): 28 January 1989, Stattheater, Freiburg, Germany, Siegfried Shoenbohm, director, Gerhard Markson, conductor. Publ: Meladina Press. Rec.: youtube.com/results?search_query=Dmitri+N.+Smirnov%3ATiriel+Scene
13. String Quartet No. 2, Op. 42, 1985, 14 min. The 2nd movement is a meditation on Blake’s A Cradle Song (from a draft Notebook). Publ: Meladina Press. CD: amazon.co.uk/dp/B00069I6Q0/sr=8-1/qid=1501323304/ref Rec.: youtube.com/watch?v=PiIKnXNe-wM
14. Thel (The Lamentations of Thel): Prologue to the Opera, for chamber ensemble of 16 players and choir (optional), Op.45a, 1985, 10 min. Publ: Boosey & Hawkes. Rec.: youtube.com/watch?v=W0m0OSUsrts
15. Thel (The Lamentations of Thel), chamber opera in four scenes with Prologue, for 4 singers, chamber chorus, and ensemble of 16 players Op. 45, 1986, 52 min. Libretto by Dmitri N. Smirnov after William Blake’s The Book of Thel, in English, or Russian (transl. by D. N. Smirnov). Premiere: 9 June 1989, Almeida Theatre, London, by Théâtre de Complicité, Annabel Arden, director, Jeremy Arden, conductor. Publ: Boosey & Hawkes. Rec.: youtube.com/results?search_query=Dmitri+N.+Smirnov%3A+Thel
16. Songs of Love and Madness, in four movements, for voice and chamber ensemble of 6 players (clarinet, celesta, harp, violin, viola and cello), Op. 49, 1987, 20 min. Texts by William Blake from Poetic Sketches: 1. The Golden Cage (How Sweet I roam’d...), 2. Despair (My sinks and fine array...), 3. Love and Harmony, 4. Mad Song. The texts include parallel Russian translations by the composer. 1st performance: November 1990, Huddersfield Festival, Margaret Field, soprano, Ensemble Chameleon, Andrew Ball, celesta/conductor). Publ: Hans Sikorski, Hamburg.
17. The Seven Angels of William Blake, in eight movements, for solo piano, Op. 50, 1988, 23 min. Inspired by Blake’s poem “Vala, or Four Zoas”. Content: 1. Prelude (Angel), 2. Lucifer, the morning star, 3. Moloch, the executioner, 4. Elohim creating Adam, Adam creating Elochim, 5. Shaddai’s anger, 6. Pahad’s fear, 7. Jehovah appealing to Eternity, 8. Jesus, the Lamb. 1st performance: 23 November 1989, Glasgow University, Susan Bradshaw. Publ: Kompozitor, Moscow (score), Meladina Press. Rec.: youtube.com/results?search_query=Dmitri+N.+Smirnov+7+Angels+of+Blake
18. The Moonlight Story, (Blake Pictures I – the first part of an imaginary ballet), for the chamber ensemble of 6 players (piccolo, bass clarinet, violin, viola, cello and double bass), Op. 51, 1988, 14 min. After the Blake’s picture Malevolence. 1st performance: 8 June 1989, Almeida Theatre, London, Nash Ensemble, Lionel Friend (conductor). Publ: Meladina Press. Rec.: youtube.com/watch?v=LBAqnaxDpYM
19. First Violin Concerto, for violin and string orchestra, Op. 54, 1990, 20 min.A meditation on the Blake’s picture Jacob’s Dream. 1st performance: 10 October 1993, St Andrew's Hall, Norwich, Andreas Seidel, violin, Leipzig Chamber Orchestra, George Moosdorf, conductor. Publ: Boosey & Hawkes, Meladina Press.
20. From Evening to Morning, in two movements, for mixed chorus, Op. 55, 1990, 12 min. A setting of two Blake’s poems from Poetical Sketches: 1. To the Evening Star, 2. To Morning. The texts include parallel Russian translations by the composer. Publ: Meladina Press.
21. Jacob’s Ladder (Blake Pictures II – the first part of an imaginary ballet), for chamber ensemble of 16 players, Op. 58, 1990, 14 min, After Blake’s picture Jacob’s Dream. 1st performance: 17 April 1991, Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, London Sinfonietta, Gennadi Rozhdestvenski, conductor. Publ: Boosey & Hawkes (score), Meladina Press.
22. A Song of Liberty, an oratorio in nine movements, for four singers, chorus and orchestra, Op. 59, 1991, 42 min. A setting of a complete text of A Song of Liberty from Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Content: I. The Eternal Female groans (Introduction), II. Albion’s coast, the American meadows (Passacaglia) III. Shadows of Prophecy (Soprano Aria), IV. France, Spain, Rome (Canon),V.The new born terror (Fantasia I), VI. The fire (Chorale), VII. Londoner, Jew, African (Quartet), VIII. The fiery limbs (Battle of Liberty, Fantasia II), IX. Priests of the Raven (Final Chorus). The texts include parallel Russian translations by the composer. 1st performance: 30 January 1993, Leeds Town Hall, Leeds Festival Chorus, BBC Philharmonic, Jerzy Maksymiuk, conductor. Publ: Boosey & Hawkes, Meladina Press.
Works written in England:
23. Three Blake’s Songs, for voice and chamber ensemble of five players (2 clarinets, viola, cello and double bass), Op. 61, 1991-2, 14 min. Content: 1. Silent, Silent Night (Notebook), 2. The Tyger (Songs of Experience), 3. To See a World in a Grain of Sand (Auguries of Innocence, Pickering Manuscript). The texts include parallel Russian translations by the composer. 1st performance (No. 1): 20 July 1991, Cheltenham Festival, Mary Wiegold, soprano, Composers’ Ensemble, John Woolrich, conductor; (Nos.2-3): 13 May 1992, Dartington Hall, Mary Wiegold, soprano, Composers Ensemble, Charles Peebles, conductor. Publ: Meladina Press.
24. Four Blake’s Songs, for soprano and string quartet, Op. 61a, 1991-2/2010, 16 min. Content: 1. To See a World in a Grain of Sand (Auguries of Innocence, Pickering Manuscript), 2. A Divine Image (Songs of Experience), 3. Silent, Silent Night (Notebook), 4. The Tyger (Songs of Experience). The texts include parallel Russian translations by the composer. 1st performance: 29 November 2011, Pushkin’s Museum, Moscow, December Evenings, Joan Rogers soprano, Doric Quartet. Publ: Meladina Press. Rec.: youtube.com/watch?v=_QlyCO_tTPM&list
25. Four Studies after The Book of Job (Job’s Studies), for solo clarinet/narrator, Op. 62, 1991, 13 min. After Blake’s illustrations to The Book of Job. Texts from the Bible: 1. There was a Man in the Land of Uz (Ch.1:1-2), 2. The fire is fallen from Heaven (Ch.1:16), 3. Let the day perish wherein I was born (Ch. 3:3) 4. Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind (Ch. 38:1-2). 1st performance: 25 October 1991, Ohio State University, Bruce Curlette. Publ: Meladina Press. Rec.: youtube.com/results?search_query=dmitri+n.+smirnov+job%27s+studies+
26. Abel (Blake Pictures III – the third part of an imaginary ballet), for clarinet, violin, cello and piano, Op. 65, 1991, 14 min. After Blake’s picture The Body of Abel Found by Adam and Eve. 1st performance: 24 June 1992, St Magnus Cathedral, Orkney, Ensemble Chameleon. Publ: Boosey & Hawkes, Meladina Press. Rec.: youtube.com/watch?v=15LSiMHx8gw&feature
27. The River of Life (Blake Pictures IV – the fourth part of an imaginary ballet), for chamber ensemble of 16 players, Op. 66, 1992, 13 min. After Blake’s picture The River of Life. 1st performance: 8 November 1992, Queen Elisabeth Hall, London, London Sinfonietta, Oliver Knussen, conductor. Publ: Boosey & Hawkes, Meladina Press.
28. Blake’s Pictures, an imaginary ballet in four scenes, Opp. 51, 58, 65 & 66, 1988-92, 60 min. Content: 1. The Moonlight Story, 2. Jacob’s Ladder, 3. Abel, 4. The River of Life. Publ: Boosey & Hawkes, Meladina Press.
29. Diptych (Los & Enitharmon), for solo organ. Op. 70, 1992/2002, 12 min. Inspired by the Blake’s poem Vala, or Four Zoas. 1st performance: 25 September 1992, Dom Cathedral, Riga, Friedemann Herz. Publ: Meladina Press.
30. Piano Quintet, in three movements, for piano, violin, viola, cello and double bass, Op. 72, 1992, 20 min. The second movement was influenced by the Blake’s poem The Crystal Cabinet (see Op.27g). 1st performance: 23 January 1993, RNCM, Manchester, Music Group of Manchester. CD: amazon.co.uk/Maxwell-Davies-Quartet-Dmitry-Smirnov/dp/B003YCI224 Rec. (1st mov.): youtube.com/watch?v=x3znmZqtctI
31. The Guardians of Space (The Seven Angels of William Blake), for large orchestra, Op. 79, 1994, 30 min. Inspired by Blake’s poem Vala, or Four Zoas. Orchestral version of The Seven Angels of William Blake, Op. 50. Content: 1. Prelude (Angel), 2. Lucifer, the morning star, 3. Moloch, the executioner, 4. Elohim creating Adam, Adam creating Elochim, 5. Shaddai’s anger, 6. Pahad’s fear, 7. Jehovah appealing to Eternity, 8. Jesus, the Lamb. Publ: Meladina Press.
32. The Lamb, for counter-tenor and six viols, Op. 83, 1995, 6 min. A setting of Blake’s The Lamb (Songs of Innocence). The text includes parallel Russian translation by the composer. 1st performance: 2 May 1995, Purcell Room, London, Michael Chance, counter tenor, Fretwork. Publ: Boosey & Hawkes, Meladina Press.
33. Miss Gittipin’s Talk, for solo soprano, Op. 98, 1997, 4 min. A setting of the episode from Blake’s An Island on the Moon. Publ: Meladina Press.
34. A Cradle Song, for soprano and piano, Op. 126, 2001, 7 min. A setting of A Cradle Song (Songs of Innocence). Publ: Meladina Press.
35. Innocence of Experience, for tape, Op. 132, 2001, 27 min. A setting of ten Blake’s poems from Songs of Innocence and of Experience: 1. Introduction, 2. The Lamb, 3. Laughing Song, 4. Infant Joy, 5. A Dream, 6. The Divina Image, 7. The Clod & the Pebble, 8. The Sick Rose, 9. The Fly, 10. The Tyger. Reading by Alissa Firsova (English). Publ: Meladina Press. Rec.: youtube.com/results?search_query=smirnov%3A+Innocence+of+Experience
36. Proverbs of Hell, 1st Notebook, seven short songs for voice and piano, Op. 151, 2006-07, 10 min. A setting of the Proverbs of Hell from Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell: Introduction, 1. The Little Flower, 2. The Busy Bee, 3. An Eagle, 4. The Clock, 5. Pestilence, 6. Black & White, 7. Eternity. Publ: Meladina Press. 1st performance (Nos. 3 & 7): 29 November 2011, December Evening, Moscow, Pushkin Museum, Joan Rogers , soprano, Andrew West, piano. Publ: Meladina Music, CreateSpace for Amazon, USA. Rec.: youtube.com/watch?v=eL3Qy9nRsZ4
37. Inferno (String Quartet No. 8), in 17 episodes, for two violins, viola and cello, Op. 152, 15 min. After Blake’s illustrations of Dante’s Divine Comedy. 1st performance: 4 November 2008 Rodewald Concert Society, in partnership with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic. St George's Concert Hall, Lime Street, Liverpool, Dante String Quartet Rec.: youtube.com/results?search_query=Dmitri+N.+Smirnov%3A+Inferno
38. Blake-Sonata (Piano Sonata No. 6), in two movements, Op. 157, 2008, 17 min. 1st performance: 20 November 2008, Deptford Hall, Goldsmiths College, London, Alissa Firsova, piano. Publ: Meladina Music, CreateSpace for Amazon, USA. CD: Russian Émigrés, Vivat 109. Score: amazon.co.uk/Blake-Sonata-Piano-sonata-Meladina-x/dp/1543034438 Rec.: youtube.com/results?search_query=Dmitri+N.+Smirnov%3A+Blake-Sonata+ CD: amazon.co.uk/d/Digital-Music/Russian-Émigrés-Alissa-Firsova/B012P0O9GI
39. Visionary Heads, five pieces for piano, Op. 172, 2013, 12 min. After Blake’s pencil drawings: 1. Blake's Instructor, 2. The Man Who Built the Pyramids, 3. Corinna, 4. Cancer Constellation, 5. Owen Glendower. 1st performance: 29 March 2014, St Saviour’s Church, St Albans, Alissa Firsova, piano. Publ: Meladina Press. Rec.: youtube.com/results?search_query=Dmitri+N.+Smirnov%3A+Visionary+Heads
40. Proverbs of Hell, 2nd Notebook, five short songs for voice and piano, Op. 185, 2015-16, 6 min. A setting of the Proverbs of Hell from Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell: Introduction, 1. Learn, teach, enjoy, 2. The Cart and the Plough, 3. The Palace of Wisdom, 4. Prudence and Incapacity, 5. The Worm and the Plough. Score: Meladina Music, CreateSpace for Amazon, USA.
41. Proverbs of Hell, 3rd Notebook, four short songs for voice and piano, Op. 186, 2016, 5 min. A setting of the Proverbs of Hell from Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell: Introduction, 1. Dip him in the river, 2. A fool sees not, 3. He whose face, 4. No bird soars too high. Score: Meladina Music, CreateSpace for Amazon, USA.
42. Blake Intermezzo, for string septet, Op. 190, 2017. 1st performance: (played as the 2nd movement of Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No.3) 28 Nov 2017, Akhundov House, Tbilisi, The Soloists of the Georgian Symphony Orchestra Publ: SMP Press, USA Score: sheetmusicplus.com/title/blake-intermezzo-for-strings-digital-sheet-music/20697390 Rec: youtube.com/watch?v=V3Dt0W3zW64&t=15s
43. Blake Intermezzo, for double bass and piano, Op. 190a, 2017. Score: sheetmusicplus.com/title/blake-intermezzo-for-double-bass-and-piano-digital-sheet-music/20697393 Rec: youtube.com/watch?v=M7ASeCeGFgI&t=103s
44. Proverbs of Hell, 4th Notebook, four short songs for voice and piano, Op. 191, 2017, 5 min. A setting of the Proverbs of Hell from Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell: Introduction, 1. All Wholsome Food... 2. In a Year of Dearth... 3. Revenges not Injuries... 4. The most sublime act... Publ: Meladina Music, CreateSpace for Amazon, USA.
Part 1: In Russia
1 Igrew up in a country where English literature was considered
exemplary, and it was faithfully translated into my
native language by many generations of eminent translators.
British or American classics were almost as popular as Russian,
but of course William Shakespeare always stood in the
first place and eclipsed all other authors of the world. Therefore,
it is not surprising that in my early youth, when I began
to write music and was looking for texts for my vocal compositions,
I initially turned to setting some of Shakespeare’s
sonnets from the most popular Russian translation, by
Samuil Marshak. I had only started studying English then.
2 One day in 1967, when by chance in a bookshop, I bought
a Soviet book with an English title, In the Realm of Beauty,
a collection of English-language poetry printed in English.
I was struck by William Blake’s short quatrain
To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.
1. Also known by the pen names Dmitri N. Smirnov and D.
Smirnov-Sadovsky.
It impressed me with its depth and universality–an incredible
flight of the imagination while, at the same time, an
amazing simplicity. I immediately felt that I had found the
main thing I was looking for in art, poetry, music, and
in life itself. After translating it into Russian I began to
translate everything from that book–there were works of
Shakespeare, Byron, Shelley, Coleridge, Keats, Burns, Edgar
Allan Poe, and many other great poets, but Blake drew me
in more than anybody else. Back then, I could not have
foreseen how much this hobby would affect my music and
life, causing me eventually even to emigrate to the country
of the English bards. Later my wife, Elena Firsova, also
a composer, set my first translation to music for chorus and
orchestra in Augury, op. 38, 1988, one of her most monumental
works, commissioned by and performed at the BBC
Proms in London (see <https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=2sClyPHu8NQ>). I also set to music the same text, but
in the original English version, in my Three Blake Songs for
voice and ensemble of two clarinets, viola, cello, and double
bass, op. 61, no. 3, 1992. A later version of this work is here:
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QlyCO_tTPM>. To
make it possible to perform not only in English but also in
Russian, I placed my Russian translation below the English
text in the score (illus. 1).
3 However, the list of my works setting Blake to music begins
with another piece, The Crystal Cabinet for violin and piano
(or celesta), op. 27g, 1979. I was enchanted by Blake’s poem
of the same title from the Pickering Manuscript that begins
The Maiden caught me in the Wild
Where I was dancing merrily
She put me into her Cabinet
And Lockd me up with a golden Key.
The poem tells the story of a miraculous meeting of a
young man with a translucent threefold maiden “each in
the other closd” with her threefold smile and threefold kiss.
It gave me the simple but rather unusual structural idea
to compose a piece in which every bar of the accompaniment
contains four triads made of different notes but together
embracing a complete chromatic scale. The series of
these triads forms multiple and always different combinations,
and on top of this harmony appears the melodious
line of the violin, which is built of the notes suggested by
the triads of the accompaniment (illus. 2).
4 In December 1979 one of the most pivotal of my compositions
was completed—The Seasons for voice, flute, viola,
and harp, op. 28, the setting of four Blake verses from his
earliest collection, Poetical Sketches: “To Spring,” “To Summer,”
“To Autumn,” and “To Winter.” The cycle begins
